


Upheaval

by mtjester



Series: Insurrectionbent [10]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Alternia, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtjester/pseuds/mtjester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither Karkat nor Nepeta are prepared for Aradia's arrival, but both are overjoyed to have the opportunity to see their friends for the first time in a sweep.  When it's time to leave Alternia, however, a few unspoken emotions begin to rise to the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upheaval

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the events of [Insurrection for Desperate Dreamers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629667/chapters/1138507)

Karkat was too overwhelmed by the turbulent emotions coursing through his body to move.  It was almost a surprise he could even breathe. 

Two days ago, Aradia had shown up at the door of Nepeta’s cave, declaring her intent to bring Nepeta back to Equius.  Nepeta had protested, refusing to leave Karkat alone on Alternia, but Aradia had instructed him to come along, too.  After a bizarre and rather spooky conversation full of prophetic allusions and mysterious statements of assurance, Aradia had convinced them that there were urgent, if unknown, reasons for them to both leave Nepeta’s cave behind.  As far as Karkat was concerned, she hadn’t needed to waste her breath, if indeed she had any breath to waste in her robotic body.  He had been sold on the idea the second she’d told him that they were both listed as deceased and therefore had no reason to hide anymore.

With Nepeta on her back and Karkat dangling from her arms, Aradia had carried them both back to Kanaya’s hive, where they had had an emotional reunion with their old friend.  Karkat had been overjoyed to see someone different, someone calm and not catlike.  Aradia’s arrival had been somewhat emotional as well, but her apathetic attitude coupled with her metallic, inorganic body had blunted the shock of her presence.  But Kanaya was alive, and she had a real personality to boot.  Talking with her had been like drinking water after a long drought.

Kanaya had filled them in on the gossip.  So much had happened in the past sweep, he could hardly process half the things she was telling him.  Equius had joined the Ruffiannihilators and had made Aradia her robot body, and now they were matesprits.  Sollux had spent some time in slavery, but he was now living it up with Feferi.  Tavros was assumed dead.  Vriska had done this, that, and something else as a pirate, and Terezi had been a Legislacerator, but by some weird twist of fate they had wound up together as kismesisses.  Eridan was still a douche.  And Gamzee had gone shithive maggots and was now a murder machine for the Subjugglators.  Karkat’s heart continued to beat painfully well into the day as he tried to fall asleep in the guest recuperacoon, his mind repeating all the new information to him in loops.  He didn’t know how to feel, but he knew he felt too much.  Terezi had a kismesissitude with Vriska?  Sollux had been a slave?  Gamzee went _insane_?

How could all this have happened while he was wasting time prancing around a valley with Nepeta and her giant cat lusus?

The next night, the ship Aradia had sent for landed in Kanaya’s yard, piloted by a number of small robots.  Kanaya still had things to put in order, so they hadn’t left immediately.  This was fine by Karkat.  The prospect of going into space sent such nervous, jittery shivers through him he could hardly think.  It was all happening so fast.  The very fact that it was happening at all was enough to knock him speechless.  It was happening.  _It was happening._

To release some of his excess energy, he had logged onto trollian for the first time since coming to live with Nepeta.  He talked to Sollux, who had expressed such surprise and excitement to find him alive that he had almost begun to feel flattered before they somehow fell to bickering.  Besides Sollux’s strange new use of fish puns, it had felt like old times.  Like nothing had ever happened.  Like he hadn’t spent a sweep in a cave.

And then Terezi had come on.  She had said something about the taste of his drab, gray words.  She had expressed a desire to smell his candy red blood, now that she knew what color it was.  She had said something about missing him, and catching up, and she had punctuated the statement with a small smiley face: >;]

She had been like he remembered her, facetious, playful, and sly, with only a hint of seriousness that had not existed before.  And now he was sitting and rereading the conversation, too overwhelmed by the turbulent emotions coursing through his body to move.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Nepeta bounded up to him from behind and pounced on him.  “Karcat, guess what!” she exclaimed, slipping into a crouch next to him.

“What the bulge-grabbing fuck is it?” he snapped, willing his heart to stop beating so quickly.

“I got to talk to Equius!” she said, her eyes huge with joy.

“Excuse me if I don’t start pissing myself with excitement."

“It’s okay, I know you don’t care,” she said, grinning, “but I had to tell someone!  I’m so happy, Karcat!”

“Fucking fabulous."

“Why are you so grumpy?  You should be pawsitively ecs-cat-tic!” she said.  “We’re going to get off Alternia!  And we can talk to everyone again!  Isn’t that grrrreat?”

“It is grrrreat.  It’s the best fucking thing that’s happened to me since...ever.  This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole miserable life, and my joy is so far beyond containment that my think pan has already popped and is currently oozing out of my hear ducts,” he said, and he was beginning to relax.  This conversation promised to be pointless and stupid, and it would be a welcome reprieve from the emotional intensity of the past two days.

She laughed, settling next to him.  “Who are you talking to?” she asked, leaning to get a look at his screen.

“Nobody,” he said, turning the screen from her, but she had already recognized the color and the quirk.  He could sense an instant but subtle shift in her energy.

“Terezi, right?” she asked.  “I just talked to her too!  It was fun.  She played purrtend games with me, just like old times.”

“Yeah,” he said.  “It’s nice to talk to her again.”

He avoided eye contact as she examined his face, and then she stood.  “I’ll leave you alone,” she said, and when he glanced up at her, she offered him a small smile.  “Maybe I’ll go talk to Tav—oh, no, I guess I won’t do that...I think I’m going to go spend our last night on Alternia outside!”

She turned to leave, but Kanaya came up the stairs before she reached them, looking exhausted.

“It’s done,” she said, walking to her pile of cushions and dropping into them.  “I’m prepared to leave.”

“Kanaya, are you okay?” Nepeta asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied.  “I have put all my affairs in order and now I can leave the mother grub’s caverns for good.  It’s just...I never thought I would do it.”

“Why are you coming anyway?” Karkat asked, closing his husktop.  “Did Aradia give you some infuriatingly vague and spooky reason to go witness Nepeta and Equius’s heartwarming reunion, too?”

“Yes, she did,” Kanaya responded.  “But I’m not supposed to talk to you about it.”

“Why the fuck not?  What’s up with all the secrecy?”

“Well, if it goes the way she seems to think it will, you’ll find out soon enough." She sighed.

“It will,” Aradia said, hovering up the stairway.  They all jumped.  “We should be leaving.”

“Now?  Like right the fuck now now?”

“Yes.  If we don’t set our course soon, we won’t make it in time.”

“Make it in time for what?” Kanaya asked.  “I thought you were arranging for us to meet with Vriska and Terezi.”

“Wait, what the fuck?  We’re meeting up with Terezi?  And Vriska?” Karkat asked, his interest piquing.

“That will happen eventually,” Aradia responded, “but for now, we will set our route to rendezvous with Equius.”

Both Kanaya and Karkat looked crestfallen, and Nepeta glanced between them, quietly assessing their reactions.

“You didn’t tell me we would be meeting up with Terezi and Vriska,” Karkat said.  “What else aren’t you telling me?  Don’t you think we have a right to know what you’re getting us into?  This all sounds pretty damn suspicious.”

“I’m not getting you into anything,” Aradia replied.  “I’m only telling you that it is now time to leave.  So get ready.”

With that, she turned and left.  Groaning, Kanaya lifted herself out of her cushions and started to gather the things she had prepared for their departure.  Karkat and Nepeta hadn’t brought many things with them, so they were already ready to go.  Nepeta waited for him to get up, and she allowed him to precede her down the stairs.

“Karkat,” she said as they descended the steps, and he glanced over his shoulder at her.

“What.”

“Um,” she began, fidgeting with the collar of her green jacket, “when we’re in space, after we see Equius, are you...”  She trailed off and bit her lip, and she shook her head.  “No, never mind.  It’s nothing.”

“What is it?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and pausing in his descent to turn towards her.  She stopped as well, still several steps higher than him.

“It’s really nothing!” she said, holding her hands up and trying to smile.

“Are you sure?  You don’t look like it’s nothing.”

“I’m pawsitive!” she said, but she looked away, reaching across her body in a defensive half-hug.

“Nepeta, I’ve lived with you for a fucking sweep.  I know when you use the load gaper for fuck’s sake.  Who the hell do you think you’re fooling?”

She smiled slightly and glanced back at him, and she sighed, gripping herself a little tighter.  “Karkat...” she said, looking away again, “are you...are you going to stay with Terezi?”

“What?” he asked, his eyes widening.

“After we meet up with Equius...you’re going to go stay with Terezi, aren’t you?”  She finally made eye contact, and he gaped at her.

“I...how the fuck should I know?” he said.  “All this shit was literally _just_ thrown at us.  Do you really think I’ve thought that far ahead?”

She shrugged.  “I don’t know...I just thought I’d ask.  But you’re right, it was a stupid question anyway, so let’s just purrtend I didn’t ask, okay?”  She laughed, but when Karkat continued to watch her, she started inching back up the stairs, saying, “I, uh, forgot my tablet!  So, uh...”

“You’re holding your tablet,” Karkat said.

She looked down at the tablet she was holding against her stomach, and then, panicking, said, “I forgot...something else!  I’ll be down in a bit.”

With that, she turned to bound up the stairs, nearly running into Kanaya.  She muttered an apology as she slipped past her, and Kanaya watched in confusion as she disappeared to the top of the tower.  She looked down at Karkat, who remained glued to the spot.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Fuck if I know.  Mind your own fucking business!” he snapped, turning and marching down the stairs.  She watched him go, completely bewildered.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [If you followed the link at the bottom of IDD chapter 13 to this fic, click here to proceed to chapter 14.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629667/chapters/1388015)


End file.
